My sons are both adept musicians. Josh in fact, is especially gifted.  He rang me up one day and asked for some help,  possibly shooting a  music video. I tentatively agreed, but the short of it was Josh meant, umm…. in three days.

I had heard No Substitute before and was really impressed by the lyrics. I had not seen Josh perform more than a few times, as he is pretty much a songwriter-computer nerd-artist who happens to play a lot of instruments.  I penned a script, rang Rob Dafoe, we assembled a plan, and three days later, with a full crew of incredibly generous and talented people, we met for a night shoot in the Bodner Design Studio which is located in Ventura, California.

Gabe Witmer dead headed down from his home in SF to play the role of The Substitute, an analogy for all the things in the world which may seem real and vital, but are in fact mere facades. Gabe is an A list model and budding actor. He and I had been sort of chomping at the bit to work together. Josh’s project was first bite.

Josh absolutely rocked his performance. Though his real name is Joshua Pu’u his performance name and alter ego is Josh Slavin. He literally becomes another person while performing. If I was there as his Father I would have been shocked. But as his Director,   Co Producer and collaborator, I was pretty stoked at what I saw.

Dafoe was amazing as always. Donna Von Hoesslin styled, did wardrobe, and mixed our toxic cocktails (Analogous props). Robert Catalusci was his normal nine ball mix of happy creativity and passion as Art Director. We really had a great crew. Who you work with defines the quality of your life. So by 2:30 am as we wrapped, all of us though tired, were really looking forward to seeing the final video and were still in high spirits.

Though Josh is my son, I would never do a project and ask those busy and talented colleagues of mine to help for that reason. I did it because I believed in his vision. He met the bar for being a subject. In the course of the night, I actually realized that by the end of the video, I would need to apply myself a bit to match HIS bar. I like that.

We shot it on the Canon 5D Mark 2 and GoPro HD systems. Which once again proved themselves as the future of creative film making.

No Substitute

Imitate, limit-ate

Settle for less

Substitute, infiltrate

I’m not impressed

Now they say it’s the same

and only half the cost

But it’s just a bandage

Over your loss….

Don’t accept substitutes

Cause there’s no substitute for love

The truth has substance

But ain’t as easy as

Telling a lie

They say it’s the same

and only half the cost

But you know better

So remember….

Don’t accept substitutes

Cause there’s no substitute for love

(Acapella)

Don’t accept substitutes

cause there’s no substitute

There’s no substitute for love

Don’t accept substitutes

cause there’s no substitute

There’s no substitute

For your love…

(Lead Guitar solo)

Don’t accept substitutes

Cause there’s no substitute for love

(Don’t accept substitutes)
Here is the video Full credits are at the very end after a few seconds of black screen by the way.

Here is a very cool “Making of” No Substitute Video done by our fabulously talented, Angela Izzo.

This was a lot of effort and work by a great group of people. We are all friends, so really enjoyed throwing down for Josh’s musical vision together. It was fun.

You can find Love’s Secret Domain on Myspace music Here. The new CD release, entitled “Pure-EP”,  in which No Substitute resides, is on I tunes.

Here are some publicity and production stills from the shoot. You can click on any of them, to toggle through as a slide show.